The experiment of holding a unified Cycling World Championships has been a triumph and the blue ribbon event, the men’s elite road race did not disappoint. Glasgow was magnificent. The technical street circuit took the riders through a succession of climbs and corners designed to show us all the magnificence of the second city of empire.
The cream rose to the top of the bottle with the top four being Mads Pederson, the always combative Viking, Tadej Pogacar, who just loves racing, and Wout van Aert and Mathieu Van De Poel. The Low Countries answer to Castor and Pollux, Wout and Mathieu have been racing against each other since they were boys. They share eight Cyclo-Cross World Championships between them but neither had won on the road – yet.
The race was designed to show case Scotland. Nearly 300km in length, it started in Edinburgh where bemused tourists and creatives gathered for the Edinburgh Fringe looked on. Then over the Forth Bridge to the Kingdom of Fife, where our quiz correspondent watched the race pass through beautiful Culross. At a major cycling event you cannot help but be struck by the cavalcade of support vehicles, security and team cars. For a sport that purports to promote active travel it needs to think even more carefully about its carbon footprint. And just beyond the very dirty carbon footprint of Grangemouth refinery, where Ineos team boss, Jim Ratcliffe, made his millions, the cavalcade came to a temporary halt.
It was a minor disruption, but the race was delayed long enough to ensure the latter laps of the circuit were sprinkled with a Glasgow shower. Well, it wouldn’t be Glasgow without the rain, and crashes ensued. Attending an active travel event on Friday, our correspondent had walked the course and it was clear it was a circuit that was perfectly suited to the best bike handlers. Attack after attack took place, the field was slowly whittled down, to our four main protagonists, all extraordinary bike handlers.
Then, when they overtook the brave Tuscan Alberto Bettiol, Mathieu Van De Poel,aka THE FLYING DUTCHMAN, made his move early. He quickly built a lead and stayed in front of the three chasers for over 20 kilometres, even surviving a scary slide and fall on a wet corner. On the podium Mathieu was clearly delighted, Tadej as happy as ever with his third place. Wout was fuming – beaten by his nemesis again.
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